Tag Archives: arcade

Last month, while grinding out weapon trophies in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, I’d play Pac-Man Championship Edition DX as a palette cleanser. Much in the same way Ms. Pac-Man expanded upon the formula introduced by Pac-Man in the early 1980s, this 2010 release expands upon Bandai Namco’s 2007 original. That’s to say the changes, new maps and features, are minor but solid improvements on an otherwise fantastic game. When I focused solely on improving my score, I was able to lose myself to the mesmerizing flow of continually changing mazes and satisfying sounds of points racking up. These positive feelings were mired only by my desire to obtain the game’s trophies and subject myself to repetitious challenges. Continue reading Pac-Man Championship Edition DX [PlayStation Network] – Review→

The Double Dragon series is one that I have no particular fondness for. The maiden entry was originally released as an arcade game in 1987 and ushered in what most consider the Golden Age of the beat ‘em up genre. It was an extremely successful game, spawning a live-action film, cartoon series, and unsurprisingly, many sequels and home conversions. Playing through the Sega Master System version with a friend this past week served as my first hands-on experience with the series and it was a little underwhelming. The depth of combat and stage variety was a drastic improvement over the primitive Black Belt but my natural tendencies resulted in an initial playthrough that was less entertaining than later entries in the genre, such as Streets of Rage. Persistent sprite flicker and vague hit detection didn’t help matters. Continue reading Double Dragon [Sega Master System] – Review and Let’s Play→

Although I’ve long been aware of Space Harrier, playing through the Master System version provided my first hands-on impressions of it, for better or worse. Originally released by Sega as an arcade game in late 1985, it was one of the first games designed by the now legendary Yu Suzuki. The following years saw a multitude of ports to popular home computers but it wasn’t until the 1987 Master System port that one of them had the distinction of being handled internally at Sega, helmed in part by the similarly iconic Yuji Naka. The resulting version faithfully adapted the fast-paced shoot ‘em up gameplay, vibrant stages, and varied enemies of the original release, despite the technically inferior Master System hardware that could’ve been a devastating drag on quality. Continue reading Space Harrier [Sega Master System] – Review and Let’s Play→

Just as the Sega Master System’s version of After Burner was disappointing, so too was its port of Thunder Blade, Sega’s 1987 arcade shoot ‘em up. Having not played any version of Thunder Blade beforehand, I lack a reference point for the game although I feel confident in asserting this was an underwhelming port. Its portrayal of two separate styles of gameplay was competent but bland. After encountering early difficulties, I decided against devoting too much time towards the game’s completion.

After completing Ys: The Vanished Omens, I decided to pause my Sega Master System playthroughs and turn my attention to a couple of recently acquired Atari 2600 games. Kangaroo was the first on my list. Published by Atari in 1983, it’s a port of the Sun Electronics (Sunsoft) arcade game released the year before, itself a derivative of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong. Playing as a mother kangaroo, I had to scale three distinct stages to rescue her captive joey. Along the way, I dealt with an endless barrel of apple throwing monkeys by boxing them into submission or avoiding them altogether. Continue reading Kangaroo [Atari 2600] – Review and Let’s Play→

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My interest in the Sega 32X has evolved from something of an ironic curiosity to that of a genuine fan. Completely disregarding the business sense the unpopular Genesis add-on made, it’s hard to argue that it didn’t host some solid games. Its limited library of about forty is one of the prime drivers of my interest: the smaller library should make it easier for me collect and play each title. So when I came across After Burner for a fair price at Game Cycle of Pittsburg, Kansas, I had to jump on it. Continue reading After Burner [Sega 32X] – Review→

It’s been a while since I’ve recorded a let’s play but I picked up After Burner for the Sega 32X over Memorial Day weekend and that gave me a good reason to do another. This is truly a port of After Burner II, despite the name (Japanese box art included in this post). I enjoyed it, although I did find it quite tough. Admittedly, reaching the end took longer than it should’ve and my output isn’t as entertaining as it might otherwise be, unless you like seeing failure over and over again. Nonetheless, my playlist is featured below with a write-up to follow soon.